ON  A  NEW  VARIETY  OF  COCHINEAL 
263 
When  a  portion  of  the  red  cake  was  macerated  in  water,  it 
swelled  but  did  not  dissolve,  and  then  gave  out  a  deep  beautiful 
red  color,  absolutely  identical  with  that  yielded  by  cochineal  to 
water.  This  colored  solution  yielded  a  beautiful  carmine  when 
treated  with  alum ;  in  fact,  this  dye  stuff  gave  all  the  reactions 
which  cochineal  gives,  so  that  the  two  solutions,  when  treated 
by  similar  reagents,  could  not  be  distinguished  the  one  from  the 
other.  When  endeavoring,  however,  to  ascertain  the  relative 
amount  of  coloring  matter  yielded  by  this  dye  stuff,  and  by 
cochineal,  it  appeared  that  it  required  nearly  a  sixth  more  of  the 
red  dye  cake  to  produce  a  color  equal  to  that  yielded  by  cochi- 
neal. In  other  words,  the  cake  appeared  to  be  a  sixth  weaker  in 
coloring  matter  than  cochineal. 
On  examining,  by  means  of  the  microscope,  the  solid  residuum 
left  undissolved  by  the  water,  it  was  found  to  consist  almost  en- 
tirely of  the  bodies  of  the  cochineal  insect  in  various  stages  of 
development.  Some  were  nearly  as  large  as  a  split  pea,  and 
#  were  full  of  ova.  In  a  few  the  eggs  had  become  developed,  and 
the  mother  cell,  or  mother  insect,  was  left  as  a  more  or  less 
shrivelled  skin,  full  of  perforations,  through  which  the  young 
had  probably  escaped.  In  both  of  these  the  color  of  the  body  ap- 
peared dark,  nearly  black ;  there  were  no  silvery  markings  ob- 
servable on  the  rings,  like  those  seen  on  the  silver  cochineal. 
Fewer  in  number  than  either  of  the  above,  there  occurred  other 
cochineal  insects  identical  in  every  respect  with  the  common 
cochineal  of  commerce.  Most  of  these  were  quite  dark,  resem- 
bling the  black  cochineal  ;  others  again  had  the  silver  markings 
as  occurs  in  the  most  esteemed  variety  of  cochineal — the  silver 
cochineal.  The  bodies  of  the  female  coccus,  full  of  ova,  were 
by  far  the  most  common  of  the  above ;  and  probably  from  the 
whole  having  been  pressed  into  a  cake  while  still  soft,  most  of 
the  bodies  were  burst,  and  the  ova,  and  also  very  minute  but 
perfect  young  of  the  coccus,  had  escaped,  and  were  floating  in 
the  water.  . 
The  presence  of  a  few  of  the  strong  thorny  spines  of  the  cac- 
tus was  evidently  attributable  to  carelessness  in  gathering ;  and 
there  were  also  observed  several  small  fragments  of  the  skin  of 
the  leaf  of  the  cactus,  evidently  scraped  off  along  with  the  in- 
sects. 
